Breaking Point 06
by xShocked
Summary: Dib's Gone, her father is incapacitated, and the sole person that seems to care is the one person she would have never suspected to. A person can only be bent so far before they break.
1. Prologue

A/N- This is a story that has plagued the insides of my head for too long, it's time for it to be let loose for the second, and hopefully last time. Happy endings are never a guarantee. This story will include some very serious moments and issues, and those that don't enjoy dark, death, or psychological torture scenes should leave now, though they won't be evident in quite a few of the first chapters. I don't enjoy flames, especially after I give fair warning. Prologues never make sense until much later; remember that.  
  
-Ruri Unstitched.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
BREAKING POINT 06  
  
Prologue.  
  
The figure knocked gently on the office door, as though not to disturb his Superior had he been doing anything productive within. A monotonous grunt approved his entry, and the door slid apart beneath his firm grip. The office within wasn't lit particularly bright, but the neon sheen to the lamps caused his eyes to squint dramatically beneath their harsh, unforgiving glare.  
  
"What is it?" his Superior muttered, eyes remaining latched to the computer screen before him in place of turning to the figure that had just entered. The figure cleared his throat, the silky calmness of his voice proceeding.  
  
"She knows, Sir." His Superior raised a quizzical and unseen eyebrow, finally tearing his gaze from the screen and latching it tightly to the figure standing tall to attention before him. He was bathed in the light, his eyes closed in retaliation, he despised the light, and a small, emotionless line made up the sole composition of his face. He sighed; that was the closest his follower would ever become to showing real emotion. Had the figure been expressing morose, enlightenment or sheer and unabiding terror, that facial expression would have never differed. It was the same with every other of the computerate, wisdom filled, sardonic, facetious humans the place was spawning with  
  
"Who knows?" he replied, raising a gloved hand to his chin. The figure shifted lightly in his position, small strands of black falling into his tightly closed eyes.  
  
"She does. Point 06," his voice maintained its velvety softness, smooth and failing to miss a beat. "She knows he's dead."  
  
"But... how could that be?! I blocked out everything that could have informed her of the news, I made sure I mentioned nothing of him- nothing of either them! How could she have possibly found out?" His Superior cried in sudden, sharp outburst, the chair he'd been seated on clattered to the floor. He'd accounted for everything to refrain from her knowing the news. If she did, she'd stop working, if she stopped working, his triangulations, his precious calculations... there was no one smarter than she to conduct them- not even himself! "Her work wasn't done yet. And now she has to be.... incapacitated. Just like they were." His composture regained slightly, though his face still screwed tightly in disapproval, gently furrowing his brow as his gloved hands touched and steepled.  
  
"Pity." The figure muttered in response with no sense of remorse comprehensible in his tones. His eyes opened slowly, gingerly to the light and delicate brown pupils, the colour of caramel, made themselves known to his Superior. Eyes the superior had come to despise for all the same reasons they had caused him so much success in the matter...  
  
"It is. She could have done so much for us..." his voice trailed to nothing, and his hands once more raised themselves over the computer screen obediantly. "But we knew it would come to this at some point. I suppose we just... cut that time a little short." His fingers, gloved in black, touched the gel screen gently, calling up scores of incomprehensible numbers and symbols humans had yet to understand or crack the code of. A small picture, followed by a long and seemingly endless box of symbols appeared before him. The picture was of the girl. Subject .06. It was a pity to waste someone with such talent as hers. But no matter.  
  
"She told you, didn't she?" he muttered in subject change, trailing his cunning fingers over the screen lightly as he spoke. His follower nodded. She'd told him everything. Everything she knew, and everything she suspected. "I told you you'd gain more confidence from her than anyone else." His gaze raised, raking across the boy before him in a nonchalant manner, hesitating slightly over the eyes. His face screwed slightly in distaste. "It's such a pity. You're a smart, obediant boy. You do the work, you follow my orders," his voice lowered, "but I hate you for all the exact reasons she's instilled so much trust and affection in you. You remind me too much of him, just as you remind her. You remind me too much of her brother,"he stared patronisingly at the boy. "I think it's your eyes."  
  
The emotionless figure had been taught the language on-screen prior to his enrollment in the... business. Before Subject .06 had entered the scene, he'd been the most computerate of the team, and thus was inclined to learn the language every computer in the building held within its depths. His Superior, smiling with satisfaction, made a final press to his screen and, in the time frame of an instant, the figure was fondling for the pager attached to his belt. The message onscreen was clear and concise in the alien symbols that Point 06 was unable to read herself;  
  
Subject .06 to be Eliminated Tonight. 


	2. There's so many things I cannot grasp

A/N- I should mention that I'm an Australian, so occassionally in my story I will use Australian spelling (Mum instead of mom, colour instead of color etc) and sometimes things that it seems you americans don't really say that often (Jumper instead of Sweater, Just Primary school and High school instead of all that Elementary, junior high and high school stuff) I apologise in advance for this. Also, my Beta reading clientele is a little low, so I'd just like to say if there's anyone out there in desperate need of a Beta reader that actually does her job, you can contact me at unravelled_stitching@hotmail.com, or ask in a review, with an email I can contact you with. Thankyou.  
  
DISCLAIMER- Gaz, Zim, Dib and Professor Membrane don't belong to me. I'm not making any money from this fic, so sueing me would be a completely pointless act of pointlessness. That, and I have money no money to begin with.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
BREAKING POINT 06  
  
Chapter 1- There's so many things I cannot grasp.  
  
The wind whispered and moaned, bitterly cold, throughout the city's centre. It playfully touselled in the inhabitants' hair, clawing violently at their newspapers and tugging profusively at their clothing. They shivered beneath its child-like curiosity, clutching their thin coats tightly to their frames and jamming their hats firmer to their heads as though not to lose them to the winds cruel fingers, openly cursing the bitter bout of weather they were experiencing.  
  
There seemed to be but one person in the entire city savouring the chilling winter wind rather than condemning it. The girl sat atop a towering and rather thick brick wall overlooking the main street to and from the city centre. It was a spot she had found so long ago, her sacred spot far above the reaches of civilisation, high enough to observe yet not be observed. She, just as she did at every interval she'd inhabited the place, watched as the world unfurled beneath her, unmoving in her hypnotic and oddly patronising stare. Her booted feet crossed neatly at the knees and her hands, clutching a small, crumpled slice of paper tightly in their grasp were thrust into her lap, begging for the warmth and comfort the harsh weather would not permit.   
  
She turned her head downward to the crumpled paper in her ice-cold hands, as if facing a strong and lifelong mortal enemy. She unfolded it with the utmost care, only to find, to her remorse, that the neat typing job was still conspicuously present, as if mocking her. That the message was still exactly the same. She raised her downcast eyeline to the city once more, blinking profusively against the bitter, icy wind. She was sure it was all a mistake; a big mistake at that. It had to be. For the one time that she would ever admit in her short life, she hadn't deserved the punishment that she'd recieved for her actions. The ultimate punishment one could ever recieve from a learning establishment, at least.   
  
She, Gaz Membrane, halfway through completing her Year Twelve exams, had been expelled. And this time it was permanent.  
  
She closed her eyes in deafeat, sighing so slightly, so inaudibly, one might have thought she'd made no sound at all. Her teacher had always told her she had no use attending school, that she had learned and achieved absolutely nothing since she was eight years old and completing seemingly endless strings of complicated Year Twelve algebra in her sparse free time. Her teacher had always said that still attending school was a waste of her breath and Gaz's precious time. She was too advanced to be attending school. She should have been onto higher, more challenging things, putting her rare talent to good use in the world.   
  
Gaz had known well enough that this was a perfectly true statement from the moment it was spoken, yet she had still stayed in school for the many long years that had followed. What was she possibly going to achieve out of school, anyway? Where was she supposed to go and what was expected of her there? It had all snuck up on her so very silently, so very sneakily that she'd barely seen it occuring at all. She hadn't been ready for University, not mentally anyway, and a job had seemed like something only old and boring people were intended to own at the time it was thought of. No, she had been scared of what would happen to her. She had stayed in school for fear of change.  
  
But now she was being forced into that change she should have been slowly eased into all of those years ago. Only this time there was no easing, no literal meaning for the words 'slow' and 'calm' in her mental vocabulary. No, her dive into the deep end of change would be short and painstakingly simple, like being crammed into a small and claustrophobic box, the lid locked tightly behind her. It seemed to her, with bitter regret, that every the change in her life had been sprung on her at once, without pause and without any sense of mercy.   
  
Gaz sighed bitterly, standing from her seated position. The note between her icy hands crunched in the vice-like grip it was subjected to. The wind pulled and tugged at her clothing, causing the fabric to flicker and dance. With a desperate, albeit weak and thready anger, the note was torn ravagingly piece by piece, word by word, letter by letter until the neat typing job was completely incomprehensible, a hopeless attempt at a jigsaw that would never be completed. And then it was thrown to the wind as a sacrifice, whose icy fangs chewed them up whole and carried them away, far away from her and far away from anyone who cared.  
  
"So much for progress..." she muttered to the retreating pieces, waving a hand vaguelly as they fluttered away.  
  
She stood complacently in the minutes that passed, observantly watching as the pieces came to rest in the gutters, rain-puddles, sidewalks and drains. Yet one lone piece flew up, away from the busy footpath and landed on a low-sitting windowsill of the high-rise building that stood boldly on the land strip opposite her. Gaz watched as the tiny piece came to rest. The blinds of that particular window were closed tight, though as she took in the building with eyes sharp for detail she found it no surprise; every blind of every window was drawn just as tightly.  
  
Gaz had sometimes allowed her mind to wander as a retreat from her problems, and on this particular day it wandered while wondering precisely what it was they were doing in the depths of the place opposite her. It was set under security so severe and strict that she didn't think anyone had been able to find out albeit the people that worked there themselves. There had been no construction period, no large and colourful signs indicating something had been 'coming soon'. No, the monstrosity had just seemingly... appeared. Appeared overnight, and Gaz could not make head nor tails of it   
  
Sighing for the thousandth time that day, she slid from her watchful perch with a cat-like agility to head home. That building, just like many things in her life at that time, was a mystery, impenetrable and unmissable and she didn't intend to figure out the secrets or reasons behind it just yet.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Dib sighed dejectedly beneath his breath, staring from the window that stood so boldly before him. In reality, he had no choice in the matter of where he was to look; he had been tied to the exact place for a period of time he had long lost count of. He supposed he might have enjoyed staring out of the window to a certain extent; had he been able to see anything at all. He slid his lower body carefully in the chair he was bound to, tapping his foot lightly against the ground beneath him. A sharp cracking of broken glass sounded harshy beneath his boot. Yes, his glasses were still long gone. He supposed Zim had broken them when they'd first brought him in. He was most certain he had been unconscious at the time, so it would have been strikingly easy for the Invader to accomplish this regardless. A boy that could not see was a boy with no defenses. How could he escape the chains that restrained him so tightly when he could seldom see them at all?  
  
He knew why he was there, though; he didn't need his glasses to see that. There was only one person he knew that honestly wanted him dead and gone. Only one person, and that was Zim. Zim had done this to him, and Zim intended for him to be dead by the time he was through.  
  
The only trouble was escaping from the tight mess he'd been caught in. In the past, many of Zim's intricate plans had proved strikingly easy to slip through the cracks from. His massive ego seemed to block his vision regularly, allowing him to rake over simple mistakes as if they were not there at all. Yet this time, Zim had almost dumbed himself down to an extent, become primitive in his technological acts. He had his full vision this time. No impairments, no ailments. This time Dib could not escape.   
  
"Well done Zim, so you've finally got me. You proud, asshole?" he murmered sardonically into the harsh and unbroken silence, attempting for the fiftieth time in that day alone to shrug his way from the chains. It was the fiftieth time that day his resistance proved futile.  
  
"If you must know human, yes. Yes I am." Dib ceased his actions immediately, his back arched, the corner of his unseeing eye twitching lightly. There was someone else in the room with him? Had there been after all that time? and it wasn't exactly a secret of who that voice belonged to...  
  
"Oh, so now you decide to show up," Dib muttered, voice dripping sarcasm, barely loud enough for the Invader to hear and not daring to stray a decibel higher. A slight shuffle filled his ears and a tiny chuckle escaped the Irken's mouth, much closer to his face than was humanly comfortable.  
  
"Well, you do know I enjoy watching your feeble attempts to escape me so much." Dib didn't need to clearly see the Irken's face to tell that, as he spoke the words, he was smiling. Had Zim been watching him the entire time? Is that what he was implying? The corner of Dib's eye twitched lightly once more. Another shuffle, and Zim's immensely blurred outline stood before him, stark and gaunt.  
  
"Tell me, Dib-Human. Why are you here?" Zim's voice was much louder, much more forceful now, so much closer to his face than it had previously been. Dib scoffed sarcastically at the pointless question, his eyebrows raised immensely on his face.  
  
"You tell me. I didn't ask to be here, you know," Dib muttered, his voice full and high with incompetence. A hard, sharp blow to the face from Zim's gloved hand sunk him back down to earth with a harsh reality. He bit his tongue, cheek stinging severely from the blow and the sluggish, dirty feel of seeping blood inside his mouth was felt.  
  
"Of course you did, Human! You've asked to be here at every second I've ever known you! Everything you did to destroy me, all the times you infiltrated and undermined me, everytime you embarrassed and humiliated me you've asked to be here, in this situation, Dib. So don't you dare tell me you didn't ask to be where you are right now." Zim's voice, laced with sharp, honest tones of menace, shot at him with the venom of a viper. His words were sharp and course, with glimmers of truth shining though in every syllable.   
  
"Well it doesn't really matter, Zim," Dib protested haughtily after a faultered pause, "because even if you kill me, people are eventually gonna see you for what you really-"  
  
"Shut up! You just can't accept they're never going to believe you. Ever! No-ones ever believed your eccentric tales and I'm willing to bet my very Squeedily-Spooch that no-one ever will," Zim cooed in a menacing, sing-song tone. "What makes you think your people are suddenly, after all this time, going to think 'hey, I think Dib was right, Zim really is an alien, lets attack him with spearguns and whatnot.'?" Zim cried, losing the velvety softness of his voice and switching immediately to the coarseness of sandpaper, his face so close to Dib's face their skin just barely touched; moss green contrasted to a pale ivory. "You're here because of your mistakes, Dib. Accept your fate and stop your pathetic dreaming," a pause. "Wake up, this is reality."  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
The door creaked open, as if reluctant and cold, in Gaz's icy fingers. A small, stray shiver crept its way down her spine as she stepped inside, swinging the door closed to the bitter wind that had followed her, teased her, on the long walk home.   
  
The house, as she entered, was in silence so complete, so absolute, that she dared not disturb its presence. The television didn't make a sound. She lowered her gaze to her her watch. The television didn't make a sound even though Mysterious Mysteries, the sole show Dib had never, ever missed an episode of had started fifteen minutes ago. The radio was shut tight, the hot water pipes weren't being put to any use... The only hint of even a slight sound was her steady, even breaths and the dull, mechanical hum of the refrigerator eminating from the kitchen. She knew immediately that, once more, she'd come home to an empty house.  
  
She sighed, defeated, and sat to remove her muddy and weather-worn boots.  
  
Gaz, in all truths, hadn't particularly expected anyone home to greet her that day. There hadn't been for at least a week now and she had yet to find the true reason she was even bothering to check anymore. She knew very well that her father wouldn't have been home, no matter what day it was. No, he had been in the Hospital for years now, she severely doubted she'd ever see him out of the creaky white-linened bed at all, let alone up and about at home. No, he wouldn't be home. He'd be in hospital at that very second, in and out of surgery, in and out of death, and ultimately, in and out of luck.   
  
She supposed he really had been very lucky in a way. The explosion that administered him to that hospital bed for four and a half years and counting had killed thirty three others, the bulk of them having not even been in the building, let alone the room the explosion happened in like her father had. But, in turn, he had been severely burdened as well. Seventy-eight percent of his body had been burned to a crisp in the time frame of an instant. In the four and a half seconds it took for the searing flames to penetrate deep into his skin, bone and flesh, four and a half years of surgeries, life support and pain had followed. Four and a half years of constant, neverending care, constant watching, constant unconsciousness. He was alive, barely, yet he was so very dead; dead inside. She'd been ready to let him go a long time ago, Dib too. Seeing their father in that condition, in that state had long proved too much pressure to their young minds. Yet the hospital flatly and instantly refused. They refused to take him off the life support that was guarding his fragile, paper-thin life. They refused to, like his own children had already accomplished, let him go.  
  
Was it because he was the great Professor Membrane? Was it because they didn't want to lose a mind like his? She failed to know, but she did know that his mind was already long gone. She'd begged them to reconsider their rushed and biased opinion, Dib had too. He couldn't live the rest of his life the way he was; they couldn't live the rest of their lives seeing him the way he was. The hospital staff had always thought this, of course, was completely and utterly ludicrus. Two children begging for their own father to be let die, it was uncalled for! So they'd always told them to give it one more day. And the machine would wheeze away, feeding him that lifegiving oxygen to make it through just one more day..... one more day. And the days turned to weeks, months, years.... and yet her father still had no peace.   
  
She pitied him.  
  
No, she wasn't expecting him home anytime soon, if not at all. It was Dib that had raised the suspicion alarm inside her paranoid head. She placed her muddy boots neatly side-by-side against the wall, making for her scarf and coat with freezing, paled hands. A week and Dib had was nowhere to be found. The first few days she hadn't particularly worried. He'd attempted the 'stakeout' thing on many occassions before and, ultimately, it hadn't lasted any longer than two days. She expected him home within a day; cold, wet and begging for her to whip him up a batch of piping hot 2 minute noodles to soothe his doused spirits. The third day, after no cold, no wet and no begging for noodles, she'd stayed up the entire night to await his imminent return, covered in mud and leaves, begging to be left alone from her acid tongue after yet another miserable information-gathering failure. He hadn't. She'd stayed home from school the next day to see if maybe, just maybe he'd come home for food while she was away. Dib ate like a horse; she knew he couldn't go without food for four minutes, let alone four days. But he hadn't come home. And every day after that, she had come home and slept in a house that was utterly empty.  
  
"You left me?" It had always been a small consideration in the back of her mind, chewing away at her conscience like a rabid wolf. The tiny consideration that maybe he had simply up and left, sick to death of his situation, sick to death of her. Had she scared him away? He was her legal guardian, after all, the social workers had said so themselves. She was entirely his responsibility. He was in charge of her wellbeing, her schooling, making sure she had enough food and being sure she wasn't getting into any trouble. He had been since he'd turned eighteen. Before that, it had been the social workers. The awful social workers. She shuddered visibly, she was glad that experience was well behind her.  
  
She supposed, though, that it was only a matter of time before she was to endure another routine check-up from them, and it was only a matter of time before they became rather suspicious of Dib's conspicuous absensy. That would be the very end of her. Back in their care. Away with strangers she barely knew and knew sparse to nothing about her. She shuddered visibly at the more thought, the awkward chill returning and dancing down her spine. She shook it away, placing her coat neatly on the hook beside the door and stepping lightly, as if not to disturb the awesome silence, fully into the house. She hoped to god he hadn't left her...  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
"But why? You're always saying how stupid and useless we are, so why use us for your work? Why not get some of your own people to do your dirty work for you?" Dib cried insanely. His internal pact with himself to talk cold and emotionlessly to Zim had long since failed miserably. He had known people had been going missing across the city in small, uneven pockets that he was unable to distinguish the reason to. It was all very hushed and not easily noticed to the untrained eye, but he'd managed to see through its innocent façade. Yet he hadn't truly known the full extent of the kidnappings until Zim had explained it in-depth. He hadn't understood that there were so many people held against their will in that dreadful place, somewhere in its deep and unfathomable depths, working against their own kind by means of brute force and cold blackmailing.  
  
"It's simple really, even you could understand. I need free work. They don't want their families and loved ones stabbed through the head," Zim laughed. "Besides, they only do the meaningless equipment handling. Moving things and the whatnot. And when they're done, they simply cease to have ever existed at all on this puny planet. After all, there's no point keeping broken toys, is there?" Zim said in an almost bubbly, jovial happiness, tugging deeply at Dib's tolerance. He could hear his sworn enemy slowly pacing back and fowarth before him, his boots tapping lightly against the cold ground with every step.   
  
"But enough about me, Dib, back down to the business at hand," his voice toned down a little, losing the childlike happiness and maintaning a more composed, complacent tinge to it. "Let's play a little game, shall we? I'll ask the questions. You answer them truthfully, five minutes will be added to your life. You lie or refuse to answer, I will hurt you severely." Dib glared at the Irken he could not fully see.  
  
"And if I refuse?" He replied darkly, noticing with remorse that his voice broke slightly in the centre of his words. The Irken merely laughed.  
  
"I'll ram a knife through your throat," Zim laughed, clearly humored, "Is that incentive enough for you, or would you like me to reconsider with a little more... how do you say... cynisicm?" Dib was forced to silence, unable to fabricate anything worthwhile to reply with. Deafeated, almost, as his open mouth, preparing to attack, reluctantly closed once more. Zim merely grinned, rubbing his chin triumphantly with a gloved hand. Silently, as though not to alarm Dib in any way, he slid the knife on his belt from its sheath. He severely doubted Dib would attempt refusal this time. Not with what was so preciously at stake.  
  
"Now, how about a nice, easy one to start with," Zim muttered thoughtfully, taking a step closer to his prey. Dib's eyes cast downward, the chains at his hands clanked noisily as he shrugged to attempt to loosen them. His resistance was futile once more. "Gaz. Is she your real sister? A sister by blood? Fully?" the Irken questioned, sliding his gloved finger along the blade of his knife in a preoccupied, thoughtful manner. Dib instantly squirmed at the mention of his sibling.  
  
"What? No, you leave her out of this! This is our fight, Zim! I won't answer any-" he cried in pure and untainted rebellion, his blurred eyes furiously searching the jagged, distorted lines that composed of his enemy.  
  
"Save your noise, human! I didn't want it to come to this, Dib, but you made me, "Zim muttered, his voice as sharp as the knife he held tightly in his hands. "If you dare to defy me, she will die for your mistakes. I know where she is. I say the word and in an instant seven of my cohorts with rather intimidating guns will be slinging her dead body to the flagpole outside. Understand?" Dib hesitated, choked slightly on his words, unsure of the right way to respond. Should he answer? it wasn't that hard of a question. Did he honestly want to risk Gaz's life in a fight that was not rightfully hers in the first place? After all they'd been through over the last few years, after all the courage and acceptence of him he'd built up to her, the last he wanted to do was get her killed on his personal account....   
  
After what seemed like a lifetime Dib sighed, fully defeated, and gave in weakly to Zim's harsh and vulgar words.   
  
"No. Not really. Not fully..." he sighed. Zim smiled. Zim had always found from conclusive study that Dib owned a recessive, aching weakness inside of him. A weakness in the pure and untainted love for his family. Being an artifically inseminated life form, Zim had never really understood or grasped the concept of the bond between humans and their families. Dib seemed to be willing to do anything with the mere mention of their names. A mere tweak or shove to his sensitive spot and he had him instantly giving in. Zim had found that weak spot, and he intended to harrass it repetitively until there was no more to give. Then, Dib would die.  
  
"Interesting. So it really is true, what I hear," Zim muttered thoughtfully, his voice trailing to nothing. "What's her IQ, Dib?"  
  
"Now why the hell would you need to know that!? You're going too fa-"   
  
"You know, your sister doesn't speak that much. It might be a pleasant change to hear her scream." Even without his glasses, Dib could make out the cold, smiling glint in both the Irken's eyes and the gleaming metal in his hands. He was helpless, unable to fight and with nowhere else to turn, having been harrassed mentally by Zim's manipulative fingers. He groaned inaudibly, fully realising the extent to which he was caught in the web. Why did he have to care about that bitch so much?  
  
"Two hundred and fifty two," he muttered between rattling breaths, lowering his eyeline immensely and sighing much heavier than he'd accomplished before, cursing the tight chains; cursing Gaz. Zim paused slightly.  
  
"What?" he replied, faultering lightly on his breath.  
  
"You heard me, asshole," Dib breathed vehemiously. His anger that had been slowly simmering inside had grown immensely over the minutes that had passed, and he ached in every appendage of his body to be rid of the chains and showing the green-skinned moron what he was really made of. Zim, meanwhile, had obliviously conducted several mental calculations and had, with little difficulty, translated the human IQ measurement into the Irken equivalent. He was astounded. Truly astounded. He had heard a lot about this particular girl, both from word of mouth and several newspaper and magazine clippings. Many things; humiliating, flattering and plain ugly. She was the gossip on many a humans' lip. There were countless against her, priests and politicians desperate for votes for what she was, how she had come to be. Yet there were an equal, if not greater amount behind her, considering her a masterpiece, a hero of technology. Though everything he had heard had never informed him that she was this smart. Incredibly, unbelievingly smart. Smarter than he and, he was sure, smarter than anyone else in the human race.   
  
"Fascinating... She certainly is smarter than you'll ever be," Zim laughed, relishing silently in the coarse glare Dib had blindly subjected him to. "You can relax, Dib, I'm tired of the questioning now. You're here for a reason, and it's time to fullfill it."  
  
"You can forget it, Zim. I'm not doing anything for you." His voice, bitter and icy yet retaining an unnerving calm to it cut through Zim's body like a knife. "Why don't you just kill me now and get it over with. You'll get nothing else out of me."  
  
"Well that would be quite an unfortunate situation then, wouldn't it?" Zim mused lightly, placing a thoughtful hand to his chin, his mouth a small, smirking line. "I've read up on the whole 'orphan' ordeal and it seems, to my studies, that you are old enough to be an independant member of society," he took a step toward the window, peeling back the thick charcoal blinds and peering down to the tiny city lights beneath him. "Gaz, on the other hand, can not at only sixteen. It is my estimation that you've become her guardian, yes?" The small, reluctant squirm of his lifelong enemy from beneath the mass of chains was all he needed as a reply. "If you weren't to fullfill your duties, and you were to be accidently... uh... incapacitated, that gives little Gaz a one-way ticket to Orphanland, no exchange, no refunds."  
  
"She won't care," Dib's voice, faultering slightly beneath its own weight, piped in sharp defiance, his pointed and unfocused gaze slowly lowering itself to the floor. Zim merely laughed.  
  
"Oh, she will, Dib. She can barely function in the world without being pulled out of the schedule that seems to be the proverbial stitches holding her in place. You comply, she will be kept safe, and I give you my word as an Invader to this," he held his right hand over his heart; patriotism was something the green-skinned menace took very seriously in his life. "If you fail to comply, instead of killing her, I'll watch her die inside her own level of hell." A sharp, aching glint had now filled his magenta eyes as he slowly took in the look of masked defeat on his assailants face. "Now, take it or leave it, but here's what I want you to do..."  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
Gaz groaned as her empty, darkness-filled dreams slipped just beyond her reach of consciousness, muttering as she was jolted rather violently back to her human reality. She rubbed weirily at her lead-filled eyelids, scratching lightly at the crown of dishevelled hair atop her aching skull. For a few seconds after her rather rude and abrupt awakening, Gaz wasn't entirely sure what had been the source of the disturbance in the first place. It was then that the dull, blaring tone of the telephone, high-pitch and scraping to her sleep-sensitive ears sounded. She groaned openly, groping with unopened eyes for the cordless she was absolutely sure she'd left on the coffee table...  
  
"Hello," her voice, disgruntled from lack of sleep groaned as the telephone finally connected with her searching fingers. A small, rather desperate voice replied.  
  
"Gaz, it's me," her sensors pinpointed the user of the voice in less than a second. She was extremely unamused with his antics, though a small, heavy weight immediately lifted from her chest as she heard him speak.  
  
"Dib," she muttered. "Obviously haven't gotten yourself killed yet, then?" She replied fully, her discourse as bitter and vehemious as she could gather from her vocal chords at the spur of the moment, differing greatly from the awesome sense of relief she was experiencing inside. There was a small, weak pause.  
  
"Not yet..." was the tiny reply given. She made a small, disapproving tut, shifting her position to a more comfortable one.  
  
"Well, what do you want?" she muttered, scratching again at her skull. There was a slight pause from the opposite end before a small, defeated sigh rung through her ears.  
  
"I need you to... to meet me somewhere."  
  
"Have you lost the keys to the car again? I'm running out of spares, you know..."  
  
"No, it's nothing like that," he sighed a second time, his voice trailing. "Besides, the cars still in garage, right where I left it. Look, I just need you to meet me at Dad's, okay?" He sounded, to the girl, almost desperate, as if he were using every ounce of strength he had left in him to force out what he had to say. She raised an eyebrow inwardly, not daring to change her facial expressions in any way. It was unlike her brother to speak in this way. His voice was commonly stuffed full of confidence, so full at times the stuffing gave way to actual coherant speech, which resulted in him babbling about absolutely nothing in the time space of an hour.  
  
"At Dad's? Dib, you know I hate that hospital-"  
  
"I know you do," the impatient voice of her older brother replied, as if rushing the conversation through. "But I want you to meet me there, okay? At six. We'll... We'll go to Bloaty's after," he muttered, "my treat." She faultered slightly, more than ready to firmly plant her foot down with a resounding no, yet stopped. Her brother had never offered 'his treat' before. My and treat were two words that had never fit together properly in Dib's vocabulary. She supposed she might as well take advantage of whatever was going on inside his sickeningly large head, making him seem too pleasant and agreeable, if not slightly eccentric.  
  
"Okay," she replied, "but I swear, Dib, if this isn't worth it, I-"  
  
"Stop worrying," he cut her off sharply, the violence of his words astounding her. She'd never heard him talk that way before; so dark, so sharp, so dissmissing. She was slightly taken aback. "Six at Dad's. Don't forget."  
  
"Don't you forget." She found her words return to reply with a snide remark. He laughed, yet the sound bared no sense of humour in its tones. It was empty; dead and empty. There was a slight, awkward pause. He was beginning to scare her. "I'm going, Dib."  
  
"Wait a sec!" he cried loudly just as she turned to hang the phone neatly back in its cradle and resume her long welcomed nap. She rolled her eyes, placing the telephone back to her ear in annoyance.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
A pause. "Love you."  
  
"Whatever." And with that, she broke the connection with a brute, heavy force, rolling to her side, sighing, and attemping to hone the sleep that had so abandonded her. Had she known at the time that that particular phone call, that brief phone call, would be the very last time she would ever hear her brother speak to her again, she may have intended to drag it on a little longer than she had....  
  
Or perhaps, in the very least, returned his very last words of affection.  
  
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A/N- Reviews motivate me. They make me work faster. Please, for the love of Zim, take the 1 minute of time to review this little piece of crap. That is all. 


	3. A Moment of Truth in your Lies

A/N- Chapter 2. Nothing much to say other than that, though. Please take the little amount of time it takes to review, even if you want to say it sucks monkey balls. That is all.  
  
Oh yeah, I'm finding my Beta clientele has dropped off a little, so If anyone that's reading this feels that they might need just that little bit of extra help in their stories to make them even better and more enjoyable for the readers to... well... read, feel free to contact me at unravelled_stitching@hotmail.com. I've had plenty of experience in Betaing, and I can range from just Spell and grammar checking your work, to going through it, with your help and permission, and finding plot mistakes, fixing up problem sentences etc. I do as much or as little work as you want me to do, and I'm always very careful with other peoples work.... Much more careful than with my own.  
  
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BREAKING POINT 06  
  
Chapter 2- Moment of Truth in your lies.  
  
Gaz had always found that the hospital her father resided in smelled of three potent, distinct things; disinfectant, pine-scented bandages, and the overbearing smell of pain. Depending as to which place in the building you were was the potency and strength of the smells, though she'd found over the long years that the third on her unconscious list, the smell of pain, never left. It forever tainted the foreboding air, filling her lungs with it's rancid breath; forever choking her...  
  
That day, Gaz noted immediately as she pushed the hermedically sealed doors apart with a heavy and dry heave, was no different to any of the others she'd spent locked away in the white-masked hell-hole. She sucked the hospital air deeply; coughing as the disgustingly strong odor of Eucalyptus made itself known in the very pits of her screaming lungs. She'd had to give up what could have indefinitely been the most relaxed and at-ease sleep she'd felt for what seemed like years in place of showing up to that awful hell-hole. Dib, when she saw him, had better have had a legitimate and rather convincing excuse for her not to hurt him severely.  
  
The blonde secretary, whom of which was solely manning the front counter managed to flash her a wide, pearly smile between the obnoxious tapping of her keyboard. Gaz had become so accustomed to the smiles; the wide, flashy kind that it seemed all nurses were trained to execute, that she knew very well they weren't genuine smiles at all. No, they were merely a dollish façade they were paid to keep up at every moment of their schedules to keep grieving visitors at ease with their surroundings. Gaz managed a dull, mechanical nod as she abandoned the bare front lobby in place of a small, rather claustrophobic corridor at its opposite side.  
  
It only took her a matter of minutes and brisk walking before she reached her destination. She'd become so accustomed to the place, despite the nauseous twisting it caused to bubble in her stomach, that she could have reached the Intensive Care wing blindfolded. A tiny, inaudible sigh escaped from between her lips and she lowered her head, entering the said wing by forcing the immensely sealed door apart with cold, stiff fingers, then listened with ears sharp for detail as it hissed softly behind her, finally coming to rest with a miniscule click.  
  
It was always very foreboding in the IC wing, she'd found to no particular surprise after all the long and lonely years she had spent inside. She hated it more that anything else about the damned hospital; the IC wing was the very root, the very epicentre of her fears, of her doubts. She hated the neverending river of tears that the wing seemed to produce from countless amounts of people. She hated the nurses, donned with their clipboards full of graphs and numbers that made no logical sense or relevancy to anyones mind. She hated the doors, huge and white, too confronting to bare for more than a few seconds. But more than anything else, she hated the beeping. The insane, insistant beeping of every heart perdometer in the damned place, keeping track of lives so preciously hanging in the balance, the sole thing insisting that the dead vessels pumped with oxygen and Morphine really were, to her remorse, physically alive.  
  
She found the designated room easily, having become so accustomed to the route taken to arrive there and the dull, slightly chipped numbers sprawled across the door. She stared patronisingly at that door at every visit she took. The white, slightly chipping frame always seemed to be looming above and around her like a colour-inverted shadow. It taunted her constantly. Her own lambent shadow on that day streaked across it's length as if it were a dirty, black smudge on its otherwise milky disposition. Her shadow seemed so small, though... so desperate and covered from head to toe in a white, a purity, that it could not match.  
  
"Ugh," she muttered dismissively, shaking her head briefly to rid herself of such menial proses. Today she had no time to wait, no time to stare patronisingly into the depths of the door she had come to despise so deeply over the years. No, she was too busy thinking of what she were to do to Dib if his reason were not a legitimate enough one.  
  
She silently, though possessing an impetuous streak through her movements, jerked down the cold, silver handle. It easily parted in her firm grip, revealing the room at the other side. A room that brought nothing but sadness, and the occasional streak of unabiding anger, to the girl. Over the long years it had become a room where she checked out her emotion at the door, as if she were wearing it like a suit. When she entered, the suit of emotion would slide on, allowing her to express herself in a way she had never thought it possible for her to, but at the end of the time spend, it was slid off once more, hung on the invisible coat rack, not to be seen or consciously felt until her next visit.  
  
Her father, inside the room, lay silently beneath a mass of coloured tubes attached to numerous incisions made to his body. An IV needle was buried deeply into the inside of his pale elbow, feeding him the nutrients and painkillers to see it through, as the doctors said, just one more day. A breathing mask to his face was administering him the lifegiving oxygen he was unable to draw in alone with seared, damaged lungs. The visible skin of his face was tight and unsure after the numerous, and most failed, skin graft surgeries to the damaged, smouldering skin. And the steady Beep, Beep, Beep of the heart perdometer, the noise that had driven Gaz mad if kept alone too long with, hung in her ears insistantly. The sole sign that he really was alive...  
  
But where was Dib? She turned her head briefly in every which direction, expecting him to be settled in the shadow, in the cold and uncomfortable plastic stool set up in the far corner; the stool she usually inhabited. Though as she inspected closely, she found he wasn't present at all. Had he set her up? Was he late? Her heart sunk a notch in her chest. She'd been waiting intently, though she would never admit, for the materialistic comfort she derived from seeing his face, a comfort it seemed only he could bring her. Though she'd long taunted him, long stated that he was the very bane of her existance, he'd been the closest to a father figure she had ever recieved over the years they hadn't been allowed a real one by a higher authority. A higher authority that had decided they deserved this kind of torture; the torture of observing their father dying, yet dragging it out for so long that false hopes of his recovery had been allowed to surface, like tiny bubbles on an otherwise black and hopeless sea. They'd been in it together for the years, both suffering from the deprivation and loss, and he'd brought her comfort to know this fact. But he wasn't there...  
  
"Not here, Dad," she muttered softly, referring to her brother as she took a small, almost reluctant step toward the bed her father lay in. Though a hard, green plastic stool sat obediantly by the white-linened furniture, Gaz chose, as she routinely did, to stand. "Should I wait, do you think?"  
  
"I don't think there's a point in that, Gaz," a voice that she recognised immediately sounded from behind her back, a voice that she'd never have thought to hear in her father's hospital room, the tone of knowledge and slight bemusement oozing from every syllable. She turned slowly, taking in the familiar face, taking in the familiar emotion, before turning back to her father.  
  
What could he have possibly been doing there? She hadn't seen Zim in what seemed like a lifetime... himself and Dib had hardly dared come within a mile of eachother for what seemed like an eternity to the girl. If it hadn't been for Dib's constant ramblings of incoherant speech about him, she would have assumed that he was dead... or left for his own planet, or whatever else it was aliens seemed to do these days. But it seemed that this thought was futile, for there he was, in the exact room as she, talking as though his presence was the most normal thing on the planet.  
  
"What are you doing here, Zim." Her voice was small and reserved, yet withheld every thread of disdain and forebodement she could muster to weave through her words at the spur of the moment. There was slight shifting from behind her as he moved his position.  
  
"Don't start the tone with me, I'm only a messenger, " he took another confident step toward her. "Dib sent me."  
  
"Do you think I'm stupid? Why would my brother send you in confidence to do anything for him?" she muttered, crossing her hands firmly across her chest with a steel and inverted grip. She lowered her gaze to her father, to his temple, where a small vein pulsated with the blood pumped around his unmoving body. Zim let out a small, low chuckle, though it held no humour in its depths.  
  
"Did he-" he paused for a millisecond, "does he have anyone else?" Gaz considered this for a second, and her head lowered in unspoken reply. Zim took a step foward. He was level with her now, she could see him slightly in her peripheral vision. His gaze, like hers, was downcast to the body before him. He clung tightly to the lip of the bed, his mouth forming a tight, grim line.  
  
"Oh how the mighty have fallen," he muttered simply, before ceasing to speak a word more for the quarter of an hour that proceeded. Gaz, finally, tired of the inane act of silence, spoke up, mustering the best sense of disdain she could manage at the spur of the moment.  
  
"What did you mean by that?" Her voice was dark and low in defense to Zim's words, the way she had trained it to become in the many years of her existance on the horrible spinning ball known as Earth.  
  
Zim smiled vaguelly at her. Silly girl. She really was attached to this man, this hollow, dead man more than anything else she'd ever before. His impartial studies on her had inferred this and now he could simply confirm it as a solid fact. He'd have to drill more to get that wall inside of her to fall....it wouldn't be easy, but....  
  
"All that power he once possessed. The sheer brilliance that could have competed even to mine. He was a wonderworker and a menace at the same time. Finding the surefire cure for Meningacoccal, then killing more than three hundred due to a carelessly unsealed test tube. The man created artificial life in that lab of his, yet refused to share his secret with the rest of the world, which to this day still remains a secret." Zim turned his eyes downward, taking in the lifeless lump of flesh. "Now look at him, Gaz. What do you see? He was once controlled by his mind, now he is little more than flesh, bone and blood. He has no mind anymore. Reduced to nothing by one of his own ailments. What little electrical impulses that do pass over his brain now will never be put to good use again. He is fallen, and we both know it." Zim didn't look to Gaz as he spoke, rather felt her eyes follow him with every step he took. She remained silent for what seemed like an utter lifetime, arms crossed tightly over her chest, head bowed low....watching everything without watching anything at all. Zim once again broke the silence, like shattering a mirror.  
  
"Gaz, he's left."  
  
"I know, he was gone a long time ago," she replied sharply, smoothing a wrinkle in the white linen about her fathers hands to pass the awkward silence. He shook his head, tutting lightly at the back of his throat.  
  
"I don't mean your father. I mean Dib." She immediately stopped the preoccupied preening as she slowly absorbed the sentence Zim had spoken. She failed to answer for a long, long proceeding, as if she were escaping the admittance through arrogance. "Gaz, it's true, Dib left. He sent me here to tell you-"  
  
"I don't believe you," she spat vehemiously, turning to him with the poise and accuracy of a snake.  
  
"Believe what you want, human, I know the truth and that's all that matters." He looked her in the eye, eyes that, though sheltered mostly from his heavy gaze, reminded him so firmly, so securely of her brothers that it brought a tiny, unconscious scowl to his face. "Believe it or not, in the long spaces that have passed between your brother and I, bonds of confidence have been woven,like it or not. I owe him, he owes me, the game went on forever, though always knowing we'd turn eachother in the second the chance arose." He stopped and took a deep breath. "I suppose it was his turn. And that is why I am here."  
  
Gaz did not reply immediately, she had no reason to, and nothing worthwhile to say. A small sigh passed between her slightly parted lips and she turned, almost shied away from the Irken. She finally gathered her words. "Why... would he just leave? You tell me, Zim." Her eyes, the eyes he knew deep down he would eventually come to despise when he could ignore them no longer, flickered toward him, taking him in, as if sizing him up. Attempting to unnerve him.  
  
"I don't know, human," he replied firmly, matching the flickering notion she'd applied to her gaze with a steady force. "I never did understand him and his insane eccentricities in the slightest." He sniffed, studying a gloved hand with a complacent smirk glued to his facial features. "There must have been something, though. I never really did see him as a person that would pursue something like this..."  
  
"He's sick of this. I don't blame him." Her voice, though faint and barely audible, cut through his words with the force of a butchers knife. Immediately, he knew he'd hit a nerve somewhere deep inside of her intangible mind, he could tell by the intent stare she administered harshly at her fathers hand, taking in the tubing and the scabbed skin and the steady Blip Blip Blip in the very back of her ears. Far away from the internal struggle with herself deep inside.  
  
A small sigh escaped her lips; so small in fact it was almost inaudible to the green skinned boy beside her. He, in turn, watched her face thoughtfully. This girl had always fascinated him.... Something about her reactions that weren't quite the same as every other human he'd had the severe misfortune to come across.... something he couldn't quite explain, though rolled with ease on the back of his tongue like a sour grape. Something he could never quite Reach....  
  
She busied her hands straightening the white sheets over the body of the former scientist, smoothing over any creases with hands almost as pale as the sheet itself; the nails deep, midnight black in striking comparison. He knew that, though she seemed to be severely fussing over the body of her father, her mind was still stuck, still restrained on what he had told her.  
  
"You're too young to live alone legally, am I right?," he muttered in a low, smooth voice, shifting slightly in his spot to gain full view of the girl. She ceased to move and an intense shot of hatred glared at him from beneath that thick mass of violet fringe... the sole item restraining him from her unimpared glare. He shuddered, a twisted attempt to hide a scowl of contempt distorted his facial features  
  
"He'll be back. If he's even gone, that is." Her voice remained fully composed, but he immediately, if not even sooner, picked up on the slight, shaking nerve that rung through like a vein of gold with ears sensitive for detail. "He needs me to look after him," she laughed tonelessly, though it held no humor in its depths. "Who else is going to cook his meals and tape Mysterious Mysteries for him while he's.... well... spying on you?"  
  
"Well, the little stink-worm has obviously found a way to fend for himself." He coughed lightly as his matter-of-fact tone sunk deep into Gaz's skull. "If he really has gone for good... what are you going to do?"  
  
"And you're trying to say what?" she immediately cut him off, peering at him with a face destitute of tolerance and acceptance of his words. His forebearance with the girl was wearing well thin, yet he still managed to force out a blank smile.  
  
"What I'm trying to say," he replied hyperbolically, "is that you're in a bit of a jam... and I want to help you."  
  
"If you want to help me, Zim, you can leave me alone. I still don't believe a word you're saying," she denounced dismissively, turning her gaze away from the green-skinned menace beside her. "Now, if you don't mind, this conversation is very... perspicatious and all, but I'm going home." And with that she turned to the much despised door, making to leave.  
  
"That's understandable," he called as she gingerly fingered the door handle. She paused. "It doesn't worry me what happens to you." He let out a small, low chuckle, turning away as he felt her suspicion-plagued gaze settle upon his figure once more. "Though I rather did need the help I could have recieved from you. It's very hard to find intelligent beings on this planet."  
  
Gaz hadn't been born yesterday, and despite attempting to block them out at every waking moment of her young life, she did in fact listen to Dib's mindless rantings about his most loved enemy. She severely doubted the 'help' Zim had previously mentioned was for anything else but his so called 'invasion', however pathetic his attempts over the long years had been, according to Dib, that was.  
  
"And I wasn't," he added, "going to leave good work going unrewarded." He raked a critisizing gaze over her, from head to toe. "I'm sure there's something you'd want from me, Gaz, some form of... unfullfilled wish."  
  
What had he meant by that? Was he attempting to claim that he could grant her the most deepest of her wishes and superficial longings? She let go of the door handle, turning to her father desperately, lying motionless beneath the mass of white sheeting and coloured tubes forcing essential nutrients along his tired, useless veins.  
  
"Unfullfilled wishes, huh?" Gaz muttered, her hands snaking over her chest in a sharp, defensive pose. The Irken eyed her face carefully. She was deep in thought, though a hollow smile destitute of any warmth was smeared thinly over her face. "You know, there is one thing I've wanted for a really long time now, but it's never been given back to me."  
  
Zim matched her hollow grin. "And that would be?" The words she formed caught in the back of her throat and she stuttered lightly, turning away to perhaps mask the light snag of emotion that caught at her voice as it protruded from her mouth.  
  
"You're leaning on his bed," her voice wavered uncertainly. Zim looked down to his gloved hand. Indeed, it was latched tightly to the Professor's whitewashed bedframe. He let go. In a moment of haste, she masked the thready tones of her voice with a deep, foreboding darkness. "Though I suppose that wish is... unfullfillable, isn't it?" Zim looked doubtfully to the man lying helplessly beneath the primitive human equipment. No, this man didn't have a chance, he was too far gone even for the most advanced of his Irken Revival equipment. Though Gaz used it as a descriptive verb, the man really was dead inside, Zim could see that oozing from every pore in his body. He was just a shell now.  
  
But he couldn't risk losing her! Not Gaz Membrane. He had to show this planet what he was really capable of, show those no-good Tallest's that he really was invasion material despite their constant and partially hidden taunts he'd only recently become fully aware of. And he needed this girl to achieve it. A human who knew all the secrets, a human willing, if not consciously, to betray her own planet. If keeping a promise that could never be traded in was the sole sacrifice he had to make to retain the girl in his grouped side, then so be it. Promises were only ever made to be broken anyway.  
  
"On the Contarary, Gaz, not everything is as hopeless as it seems." Over the long years he'd inhabited the planet, Zim had become an expert liar. There wasn't a flinch, a pause, a faulter in his words that could have been used against him in an accusation of lying. He watched as Gaz turned her gaze to him, eyes a little wider, yet twice as suspicious and full of internal and underlying emotion than she'd ever allowed them to become. His lip curled at the full, unimpared blow of her stare. That stare.... it would drive him crazy.  
  
"Don't lie to me," she muttered, maintaining eye contact as she searched his face for anything, anything that could tell her he was lying; he didn't mean what he said, he couldn't do what he was saying. Though she couldn't find a solitary thing in her deep searching. Not a faulter or a snag.  
  
"Would I lie to you?" he grinned lightly, humorously. Her gaze fell away and he found himself breathe in a small sigh of relief. "If it makes you happy, if you help me for a little while, I'll bring this man back to you."  
  
"Zim..." her voice faultered. She held to the bedpost for support, pushing a stray strand of violet from her eyes. "Zim, if you're lying, I can't let you live."  
  
He chuckled. "There's no way of you knowing for sure, I suppose. You can either accept... or you can... refuse."  
  
Decisions were never something Gaz had been outstandingly good at. It seemed that every fork in the pathway of her life, every turn, every crossway that could have led to a thousand different happy endings were void to her. She only seemed to pick the bad ones; the decisions leading her down the wrong road. She didn't believe Zim in any of the words that her brother was gone. No, she was sure this was nothing but an enticement for her mind, a psychological implant in which may have switched Zim and Dib's internal places in her mind from good to bad, or bad to good. This hadn't worked in the slightest on her mind planted firmly into the ground, yet she was still intending to accept?  
  
"How long?" she muttered, not daring to look away from her father.  
  
"As long as I need." was his swift reply. She pondered thoughtfully for a mere few seconds before the much despised door located behind her swung tentatively inward. She turned more with curiosity than surprise; a nurse entered, her unkempt, curly hair pulled into a loose excuse for a bun and her pale, watery eyes shooting them both quick, apprehensive looks behind her hollow smile.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't think there was anyone in here," her voice was thin and scratchy, and she crossed the room with tentative steps, clutching to her clipboard as if it were a safety blanket. Gaz eyed Zim in a bemused way; he continued to study the nurse with a content interest. The Nurse turned to both figures in turn. "I'm afraid you'll have to leave now, the doctor will be performing a routine health check on your father," she shot a pointed look at Gaz with her dismissing, apprehensive gaze, "and you can't be here for that. We'll keep you and your brother up to date with the results, though"  
  
"Okay... It's a deal then," Gaz muttered. When Zim finally rose his eyeline to the girl from the visibly smaller woman, he took in that she was, in fact, not looking to the nurse when she spoke at all, but to him. He grinned. He had her in the net.... all that was left was to reel her in...  
  
"How is he going, then?" He said, the nurse turned her head skittishly to face him, though his eyeline did not move from Gaz's. She consulted her clipboard hurriedly.  
  
"Well... There's really been no improvement...."  
  
"No improvement. How wonderful." A lopsided, hollow grin filled the lines of his moss-green face. "I'd say it calls for a celebration, wouldn't you Gaz?" he relished in her confounded stare. "How about we celebrate at, say, 42 Weschler Way, East City Limits, then?" recognition lit her face and she nodded knowingly. The nurse merely stood between them, afraid to move for fear of startling the staring duo.  
  
"42 Weschler Way, East City Limits? Okay," she nodded. Zim turned to the nurse, grinning, clearly humored with his cryptic speech.  
  
"That dress sure is lovely. Surely you got it at Table of Eight," he refered to a modern fashion store, yet the last word of his sentence was spoken so forcefully that Gaz immediately understood its hidden meaning with little difficulty at all, nodding slightly as she clutched the bed's thick whitewashed post. The Nurse stuttered, looking down to her plain white uniform with doubt.  
  
"Well actually, its just standard issue-"  
  
"Standard issue? Marvellous," he muttered, stroking his mossy chin. "I suppose you have a lot of clothes.... packed up then?" The nurse shot him a look of utter desperation, a thin blush forming in her cheeks. Gaz supressed a small laugh forcing at her cheek muscles, yet nodded to Zim that she fully understood.  
  
"Well I suppose, but-"  
  
"Is everything alright in here?" a tall, greying man Gaz immediately recognised as her fathers regular doctor entered the room, pulling along a large wheeling table filled with countless amounts of primitive instruments in one hand, and clutching a thick clipboard in the other. The nurse shot him a look of sheer relief, shifting her weight onto one foot.  
  
"Oh yes, everythings perfect," Zim added, flashing a wide, hollow grin. "But I must be going. I suggest you had too, Gaz." He shot her a sizing glance before leaving the room, leaving behind him a severely confounded face, an anxiously embarrassed face continually peering down to her clothes as if she expected them to disappear from her wiry frame, and a last face, though slightly impared by a thick violet fringe, that was full to the brim with sheer glee.  
  
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A/N- So? What do you think? Reviews are sticks to the fire. Add your stick, make it burn faster, get more chapters out of me. Please take the one minute from your life to review this story if you'd like it to continue. Chapter 3 up when Inspiration hits me. 


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